


True Friends Have Nothing Private

by Zdenka



Category: The Mask of Apollo - Renault
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 22:14:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zdenka/pseuds/Zdenka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thettalos and Axiothea speak about an absent friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	True Friends Have Nothing Private

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fawatson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fawatson/gifts).



> I neither own nor profit from these characters. Many thanks to Parhelion for last-minute beta, my father for lending me his copy of Plato's Republic, and everyone who encouraged me through my first Yuletide.

I went to the Academy almost as soon as I got home from tour. We had heard unnerving rumors of trouble in Syracuse, but nothing definite, and of course Niko was likely to be in the thick of it. The Academy would know the truth if anyone would. I asked for Axiothea as soon as I arrived; I had only encountered her before in Niko’s company, but as she was an old friend of Niko’s, I did not think she would refuse to see me.

 

I was too restless to stand still, so I paced up and down the long portico while I waited for her. The early morning sun slanted down, and a bird with a voice like a flute-player twittered in the olive trees nearby. I ran through a speech in my head: Ion’s first entrance, which is his hymn to Phoibos Apollo, though my heart was not in it. I do not care for how Euripides treats the god in that play, but it is a fine bit of poetry.

 

At last Axiothea came to meet me. We had never spoken before without Niko present; I wondered if that was why her greeting seemed hesitant. “I do not wish to trouble you,” I said, “but I thought you would have the latest news about Syracuse. And Niko is still there.”

 

She hesitated again, seeming troubled, and then appeared to make up her mind. “I understand. In your place, I would feel the same. Let us walk, and I will tell you what I know. Syracuse is tearing itself apart -- it is dreadful to think about. But Niko was well when I left him, and he has done us all a great service.”

 

“When you left him?” I echoed in surprise. “Surely you were not in Syracuse?”

 

“I went,” she answered, looking at me steadily with her gray eyes. “I could not bear to sit idle and never make my words into deeds.” She continued evenly, “It was rash beyond belief, and I escaped thanks to Niko. I have had a bitter lesson, but knowledge is better than ignorance.” Her voice remained calm, neither justifying nor blaming herself, and I tucked her tone away to use as Antigone.

 

“Then don’t keep me waiting, but tell me the whole thing.” I regretted for a moment that she should have played second to Niko and not I, so that I had to hear it later in a messenger speech. But the thought was unworthy; Axiothea was Niko’s friend of long standing, and she had known him longer than I had.

 

Axiothea made her relation in simple, spare words. I heard it later from Niko, but I heard the account of the sack of Syracuse first from her, while we walked in the shade of the Academy’s portico. “There is more to the story,” she added quietly, “but you should hear it from Niko.”

 

I had heard more than enough to be deeply impressed. I was not surprised, of course, that Niko had kept his head, nor that he could summon enough of the god’s voice to frighten an army. Niko would not thank me for boasting, but I know some of the magnificent things he has done -- and many of them when none but he and the god were there to see. That is just how he is. “I wish I had been there, but since I could not be, I am glad he had someone sensible with him.”

 

“Sensible? Perhaps.” Her face was remote. “I did not feel sensible, there in the dark. Or after, when I saw what remained in the temple of Apollo.” She bowed her head. “Perhaps you know a speech from some poet, that could describe such a scene. I do not have the words. I saw many things that night which I never expected to see,” she said gravely. “It is one thing to read about such deeds, but to see them -- How can thinking men commit such monstrosities? Tell me, Thettalos, is our generation the worst? Or did the men of old suffer and commit such things?” Axiothea’s face had a quality to it like an archaic statue; she made a handsome boy, and I was not surprised at Niko for his interest in her when they first met and he thought her a man. Now she looked like a frieze I had once seen in Corinth of Artemis drawing her bow to slay the children of Niobe, her face fierce yet not overcome by passion -- for when the god slays a mortal, it is as it must be, because the god is what he is, because of his nature. I thought of a line from Sophocles: “In women too dwells the spirit of battle.”

 

I was silent for a moment. “Every generation says it is the worst, but terrible deeds have been recorded for long ages. The sack of Troy: children slain, women ravished, King Priam slain on the very altars of the gods. Or think of the crimes of the house of Atreus. It is like a judgment of the gods.”

 

“Such things cannot be from the gods,” she said fiercely, “for the gods are perfect and cannot inspire an unjust action.”

 

“If there are gods, and if they care for mortal deeds.” I spoke lightly, but she took it more seriously than I meant.

 

“I have been asking myself, since I returned, how the gods can allow such a thing. There must be an answer in philosophy--” Axiothea shook her head suddenly as if to clear it. “You came here concerned for Niko, and I have been telling you my own troubles. I am sorry, Thettalos.”

 

I thought of the conversation with Plato in Syracuse, on the nature of the soul. “‘Friends, who are really and truly friends, have nothing private,’” I quoted. “And since you are an old and dear friend to Niko, I must consider you a friend as well. Think nothing of it.”

 

Something in her gaze was unnerving. “I hope we shall be able to be friends.”

 

I did not then understand what she meant. But I could not be angry at her or Niko for such a thing. A sacrifice to the god, Niko called it. Though perhaps Axiothea would dislike to think that her perfect and serene gods could cause a momentary madness.

 

When I got home, I stood before the mask of Apollo. The shadowed eye-holes seemed to watch me in the dark. I poured a libation. “If I have served you, Phoibos, let Niko come safe home.” There was no sign, but the god’s carved face was serene.

 

As I turned to put away the wine, I seemed to hear a voice in the stillness: _The god has power to protect his own_. I went to bed comforted.

**Author's Note:**

> Title: adapted from the line of Euripides cited below.
> 
> "In women too dwells the spirit of battle": from Sophocles's Electra, translated by Sir Richard Claverhouse Jebb, edited by Moses Hadas.
> 
> "Friends, who are really and truly friends, have nothing private": from Euripides's Andromache, translated by Moses Hadas and John McLean; see also Plato's Republic, Book IV, where Socrates cites as a proverb "that friends have all things in common."


End file.
